Antifog coating for bronchoscope lens

摘要

Current bronchoscopes suffer from fogging and the adhesion of mucus plugs to the lens. A doped diamond-like carbon film was developed as a possible solution to this problem. A silicon monoxide dopant was found to produce a film that was transparent, hydrophilic and stable in simulated body fluid (SBF) and therefore showed potential as an antifogging coating. The film was deposited by pulsed laser deposition and characterised by Raman spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, spectrophotometry and contact angle measurements. Root mean square surface roughness was found to be <1 nm. The unique characteristics of these films include production without secondary processing, a lowest contact angle of 25° and stability in SBF for several months combined with transparency.